By Blake Brittain
A U.S. decide on Tuesday briefly blocked the Port of Oakland from utilizing “San Francisco” within the Oakland airport’s identify, discovering the identify change would possible trigger shopper confusion and hurt the town of San Francisco.
U.S. Justice of the Peace Decide Thomas Hixson mentioned within the determination that altering the identify of Metropolitan Oakland Worldwide Airport in close by Oakland to “San Francisco Bay Oakland Worldwide Airport” would possible mislead shoppers into pondering it’s linked with San Francisco.
A spokesperson for the Port of Oakland mentioned the port is “persevering with to evaluate the latest ruling and contemplating all obtainable choices.”
Spokespeople for San Francisco didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the choice.
The Port of Oakland introduced plans in March to vary the identify of its airport, which its board of commissioners unanimously authorized in Could.
San Francisco sued Oakland for infringing its airport’s logos in April, arguing the Oakland airport’s comparable new identify would confuse vacationers. It requested in September for a preliminary order forcing the port to cease utilizing the brand new identify, which Hixson granted on Tuesday.
“Together with ‘San Francisco’ within the identify of the Oakland airport when there’s the truth is no affiliation, connection or affiliation between the Oakland airport and San Francisco is opposite to how airports in america are usually named and is very more likely to be complicated,” Hixson mentioned.
Oakland’s airport is 12 miles (19 km) east of San Francisco and simply over 30 miles from San Francisco Worldwide Airport, whose airport code is SFO.
San Francisco Worldwide served 47 million passengers in fiscal yr 2023 whereas Oakland’s airport served greater than 11 million, in response to metropolis experiences.
The Port of Oakland advised the courtroom in Could that airports in Chicago, Dallas, London, Paris and Beijing peacefully share their cities’ names and mentioned its branding and continued use of the OAK airport code would forestall confusion.
The port additionally mentioned the brand new identify was an “correct geographic descriptor of OAK’s location on San Francisco Bay.”
The decide mentioned it was “extraordinarily uncommon” for a serious U.S. airport to “bear the identify of a special metropolis than the one which owns it,” noting that Chicago and Dallas every personal the 2 airports that bear the cities’ names.